Course Descriptions

This course serves three interrelated purposes 1) to give students a fundamental and practical understanding of leadership theory as it is understood by many scholars and practitioners across disciplines; 2) to encourage students to develop their own conceptual frameworks for diagnosing and intervening in educational and organizational systems; and 3) to provide students with opportunities to test and integrate their learning with experience in order to further their capacities for exercising both leadership and authority.?The following questions provide the predominant focus: How do you analyze and diagnose the work that needs to be addressed in problematic situations? How do you frame problems so that the group can begin to work on them??How do you intervene in ways that get the groups' attention and then maintain engagement? How do you facilitate dialog on important issues? How can you exercise leadership if you have little or no formal authority? How do you deal with group defensiveness and resistance? How can you evaluate whether or not real progress is being made?

Former title: Leadership Theory and Practice. New title effective Fall 2015.